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Verified Server Moderation Guidelines

Introduction

Welcome to the official Verified Server Requirements document for Music Artists, Esports Organizations, Game Publishers or Developers! You may have the right qualifications for verification by being a game publisher or developer that has a server in support of your live, playable game. You may also qualify if you're a music artist that's verified on Spotify, or even an esports organization or team that has hosted or competed in an official tournament or league, but you'll also need to fully equip your server with these requirements below for setting up, moderating, and protecting your community server from abuse to get that server you own and manage officially official!

Moderators

First off, you’ll need to have a team of moderators to assist in keeping the server a fun and appropriate place to participate in as your community grows. The best moderators typically have experience participating in your community, and are enthusiastic and seasoned superfans! Additionally, each verified server should have a pre-written set of rules of behavior for the server to alleviate possible confusion or misunderstanding, and gives your team a good set of tools to moderate efficiently and transparently.

Verification Levels, Content Filtering & 2FA

As more and more popular public community servers have made their homes on Discord, we’ve added varying levels of server security features to meet the demand. Three important features that we require verified servers to implement are moderation levels, explicit content filter & two factor authentication:

Moderation Levels: Located in the Server settings > Moderation tab. Four different levels of verification can be enabled based on the desired level of security for new users joining the server to prevent spam / unhealthy users. For verified servers, we require at least a “Medium” level of moderation— in which users must have had their account for more than five minutes in order to participate in the server— to have a good balance between security and participation encouragement for new users. (You are more than welcome to set the verification higher or all the way to the max!)

Explicit Content Filter: In addition to preventing spam accounts from flooding the server, we’ve also implemented an explicit content filter. This will scan messages based on your desired level of security, then dispose of anything illegal or that is explicit content. Of the provided options, we require setting the filter to “Scan all messages” to prevent anything unsightly. It takes only one bad image to make a terrible experience for everyone involved

Channel Permissions and Organization

Additionally, we require permission settings in each channel of the verified server to help keep things neat and tidy, like having different text channels and/or categories for specific purposes. For example, while a #general channel should encourage all users to chat, it may be helpful to disable message sending for all users but staff and moderators to create an effective #Announcements channel. Other similar setups that you might want to consider include #Rules, #AMA [Ask me Anything], or #Giveaways channels, all of which can be set so that only specific roles can post to them, making them effectively read-only channels for most users.

Private Channels

Similar permissions can be used to exclude specific roles from viewing certain channels. And verified servers in particular should include a #Moderators channel for moderators and staff to discuss rules, enforcement, or upcoming community events.

Server Notification Settings

Newly-created Discord servers start with notifications set to all messages. While this is ideal for smaller, more intimate servers, it can get a little tiresome for larger communities. For this reason, we require that verified servers change this to the only @mentions option at the bottom of the overview tab within the server settings menu.

Additional Examples & Information

In addition to these requirements, there are many other options and add-ons that can simplify community building on Discord. Other community servers provide great additional references and are often happy to answer questions and offer their own tips and tricks to moderating servers.

Discord also requires that all users abide by the Terms of Service and the Community Guidelines, and the Discord Trust and Safety team will enforce those rules. If you see users that are breaking those rules — for example, doxxing others, threatening them with harm, distributing viruses, or anything along those lines — you can not only ban them from your server, but we’d also suggest that you reach out to our Trust and Safety team at abuse@discord.com and report the behavior so that we can take care of it.

Outside of those Community Guidelines, you’re welcome to set the rules for your own server — but keep in mind that enforcement of those rules will be the responsibility of your moderators, and not Discord staff.